• Ancient Greece incorporated much more territory than Modern Greece & Cyprus
• Extent varied greatly over time

Modern Greece

Aegean Basin and Magna Graecia in c5-4 BC

Colonization, circa 800-500 BC

Alexander's Empire at his death, 323 BC

Hellenistic Kingdom of Bactria circa 180 BC

Indo-Greek Kingdoms at maximum extent under Menander I, circa 150-130 BC (kingdoms finally ended in 10 BC)

• Hellas is over 80% mountains

• Frequent earthquakes

• Mt. Olympos, 2972m (9750')

• Thera/Santorini Volcano (circa 1650-1500 BC)

• Few, large plains (Thessaly, Boetia, Attica)

• Few passes, overland travel extremely difficult before c19

• severe winters in mountains, hot dry summers on coast

Tectonic activity of the Mediterranean basin

Regions which can support olive trees, principally limited by elevation.

• Pausanias (fl. c.150 AD)
• Descriptions of Greece, basically Roman province of Achaia
• Focus on religious sites, Archaic and Classical monuments
• Formated as tour of cities and rural sanctuaries, little interest for countryside
• Accuracy confirmed through excavations

• Eratosthenes (c.285-194 BC)
• Polymath, wrote literary criticism, chronology, mathematical treatises, philosophy and poetry
• Calculated circumference of earth, accurate to about 10% of modern calculations

• Ptolmey, Geography
• Codex Vaticanus Urbinas Graecus 82, Constantinople circa 1300

• Peutinger Map
• 0.34 x 6.75 m (1'1" x 22'2")
• c13 copy of c4/5(?) copy of (?) Augustan (27 BC - 14 AD)
• Crimea, Thrace, Bythinia, Crete, Cyrene, and Egypt